ANCIENT EARTHWORKS 



England, of which the Ridgeway or Icknield Street is the best known 

 example ; and most of them are connected by roads which are thought 

 to date from the Roman period or earlier. 



Another curious fact is that the large majority of these camps lie 

 near the boundary of the parish in which they are situated. In some 

 cases the boundary actually skirts the rampart, sometimes making a con- 

 siderable detour to do so ; in others the boundary runs through the 

 camp, and in two cases the county boundary does likewise. 



No systematic investigations have been made which will enable 

 us to fix the period at which these earthworks have been constructed, 

 but certain evidences which have been forthcoming at Cherbury and 

 Letcombe lead us to suspect that these, at any rate, date from the 

 neolithic period. 



ASHBURY, ALFRED'S CASTLE. The camp called c Alfred's Castle ' 

 stands on an elevated part of Swinley Down, to the west of Ashdown 

 Park, commanding the two passes 

 across the Downs from the Vale 

 of White Horse to the Lambourn 

 Valley. 



Its shape is an irregular circle, 

 and it is much smaller than the other 

 camps of this type, being only 140 

 yards in diameter. It is surrounded 

 by a vallum, and the fosse outside is 

 visible for more than half the circuit, 

 being much deeper on the south side 

 than elsewhere. 



The principal gateway is on the 

 south-east, and was defended by a double rampart, part of which still 

 exists. There is another gateway to the north-west, and a third, 

 apparently, to the north-east, though perhaps this is due to the destruc- 

 tion of the vallum at this spot in later times. 



Lysons mentions that formerly there were traces of buildings here, 

 and Aubrey says that in his time the earthworks were ' almost quite 

 defaced by digging for sarsden stones to build my Lord Craven's house 

 in the park.' ' 



An iron axe-head figured in the Arch. "Journal^ and other weapons 

 of the same material have been found in the immediate neighbourhood. 



BLEWBURY, BLEWBURTON HILL. Around this hill are two parallel 

 steep escarpments, forming terraces, and on the north-western side are 

 three more rows, while several fragments may be seen on the south. 

 The space enclosed by these terraces is on the top of a hill commanding 

 an extensive view of the Valley of the Thames and the Vale of White 

 Horse. 



Owing to its commanding position and the conspicuous nature of 

 the terraces, it has long been looked upon as a camp, and the elongated 



1 Lysons, Mag. Brit. i. 214 ; Arch. Journ. vii. 391-2. Trans. Newbury Dist. Field Club, i. 151. 



253 



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ALFRED'S CASTLE, ASHBURY. 



